While shooting the movie, The Help, actress Viola Davis was very aware of where she was in Mississippi.

Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard talk with Los Angeles Times about race, Hollywood and their roles in the new movie, The Help.

Much of the movie was shot in Greenwood, not far from the Tallahatchie River. “Emmett Till’s body was found in that river,” she told the Los Angeles Times.

In addition to the 1955 killing of Till, a young teen from Chicago, she mentioned the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers and the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

“The fact those people look just like you, it’s hard to relax,” she said.

She was touched, too, by Baptist Town, where filmmakers shot exteriors.

“It’s an all-black community, 85% unemployment, not a single high school graduate in years,” said Davis, nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Doubt. “It’s hard to separate, to have fun, to say, ‘OK this is pretend, we are in a movie. Let’s have a great time and eat fried chicken and cook cheese grits.'”

A July 30 screening of the film in Madison is a fund-raiser for Baptist Town. The movie, based on the national bestseller by Jackson native Kathryn Stockett, opens nationwide Aug. 10.

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About The Author

Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., runs Journey to Justice, a blog that explores the intersection of justice and culture in this place we call the United States​. His work has helped put four Klansmen behind bars, including the assassin of NAACP leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and the man who orchestrated the Klan’s 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. His latest stories have helped lead to the arrest of serial killer suspect Felix Vail — the last known person seen with three women. Mitchell, a 2009 MacArthur fellow, is writing a book on cold cases from the civil rights era.